Music, blindingly GREAT music.

CD REVIEW : RED LIGHT FEVER

What a welcome return for Justin Hawkins. After a year or two away from the Rock music scene, Hawkins back with his new band, HOT LEG. This is their highly anticipated debut album, ‘Red Light Fever’. Hot leg are the perfect cure if not the remedying solution to the credit crunch with ten tracks of falsetto bouncing rockers which i missed since The Darkness imploded after their sophmore release.

To start things off let’s get things into perspective; not only are Hot Leg better than The Darkness, they seem to be gelling together more as friends and appear to be getting on swimmingly, so hopefully they’ll be around for many years to come. Justin and the boys storm their way through 10 tracks of blistering fun-filled, rock-fuelled, wrecking ball rockers, barely stopping to reload and filling your ears with tasty ear candy. Swooping block harmonies, adrenaline filled guitar, brilliant drums and bass expert musicianship and they’re most definatly not afraid to use keyboards to their campest abilities! Of course, if you didn’t much care for Justin’s falsetto. Then obviously you’re not going to like this.

The first track “Chickens” pretty much confirms that Justin hasn’t changed his song writing style. Then you have “You Can’t Hurt Me Anymore” whilst Justin and his former eurovision partner Beverlei Brown give the late Ike Turner and currently living Tina Turner a run for their money on “Ashamed”. The band rock out with no sweat on “I Met Jesus” adding their “Queens” we will rock you vibe on the epic “Trojan Guitars” and 80’s influences onto “Cocktails” and of course “Gay in the 80’s”.

The glitter and gold, black panther pantomime is gone too, replaced with hot off the heels musianship which the band so obviously has and had in the first place. Being out of the public eye is allowing Hot Leg to build up a strong following, hopefully they will have a few albums under their belt before the fickle world of main stream music. Bands that make it too big too quickly rarely last because they lack the substance that only comes after years a graft. Gimmicks grab attention, but become old quickly.

Hot Leg sound brilliant. They look well too. And as the fan-base swells, we’re reminded just why we went ga ga with The Darkness in the first place. This is something to get people up and moving, down and talking, driving and head banging. They will build up their sound and confidence. They will gradually filter into the soundtrack of our lives, and for Justin Hawkins‘ fan base that never left his side, they will be grateful that he’s still rocking and rolling like a madman. If you liked The Darkness, you will definitely love HOT LEG. Cheers to Justin and the band on job well done.